April 6th, 2011 by Angela Best
Video, video, video…how many times have you heard you have to use video on your website, in facebook or tweet about them in twitter. I’m sure it’s a million times. The truth is that people do expect to see videos. They like videos made by you (subjective) and videos by your customers (objective). I’ll assume you already have some, but if not, then knowing how to optimize your YouTube videos in advance will be a huge help to you.
1. When you set up your profile page or channel make sure you have links to your website, facebook, twitter or any other social media site you participate in.
2. Make sure that you have included keywords in the title of the video. Not sure what to call it, then do a quick search online and see what people look for, that will give you some ideas – you don’t want anything obscure
3. For every video you upload always include a keyword rich description. This includes the keyword or phrase that you have put in the title as well as your websites URL.
4. Always tag your video with keywords. What is your video about? Remember that people expect to find relevant information to their search term so make sure your keywords match your content
5. Don’t forget to share your video. Allow people to comment and to embed the video on their sites if they want to. Its great for building traffic to your site.
6. YouTube has a captions and annotation feature so that you can add notes, titles or links directly on top of the video. Make use of this option.
7. YouTube also has an analytics feature so keep track of what happens when people view your video. Do they leave quickly or watch the entire video etc.
Most companies do not optimize their videos. It doesn’t matter whether they are in YouTube, Vimeo or some other video sharing site. Get ahead of your competition by following these tips. Optimizing you videos is another great way to drive traffic to your website.
Tags: Distribution, Hotel marketing ideas, Use video for tourism marketing, YouTube channels
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April 6th, 2011 by Angela Best
Do you rely on your local community for revenue or could your customer be looking for you once they get to your region? If you own accommodation or an activity they might book you in advance. But what if they don’t? What if your potential guest is on a two-week vacation but has only partially booked where they will stay and what they will do. How will they find you?
They could be looking for accommodation to book, or an activity to try, only two days in advance because, that’s when they know where they’re going. If you haven’t addressed your local search engine optimization you could be missing out.
Let’s look at the basics – local listings. The first thing you need to have is a Google Places listing. However, before you go down that path check to make sure 1. Your type of product or service has a place category, and 2. Google hasn’t already set a places listing up for you and you have yet to claim it.
Image One: Tour Operators Christchurch
Image Two: Day Tours Vancouver
In image one we can see immediately that Tour Operators in Christchurch (NZ) is a good category since Google Places shows plenty of local listings for that phrase. In the second image, it wouldn’t be a good idea to use the term Day Tours if you’re in Vancouver (CAN) because there appear to be no Google Places listings for that category. However, we did a search for Day Trips in Vancouver and one Google Places listing came up.
FYI – if you operate day trips in Vancouver get a Google Places listing now using this term, it wouldn’t be that difficult to get a number one ranking quickly.
But why do you want to do this. Let’s get back to that traveler who is already at your destination and who has a reasonably loose itinerary. Where will he look for you – either on his smart phone, ipad or computer? He’s going to be very specific about what he is looking for and where. If you are locally optimized, with at least a Google Places listing (we’ll get in to local search directories another time), then you have a far greater chance of getting that booking.
Why, because Google Places, that is local listings, show up front in the search. So, if it is almost impossible to have your website rank high in organic results, doesn’t it make sense that you can be found in the local?
Tags: Hotel marketing ideas, Internet marketing for small business, MarketingTourGuide.com
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March 30th, 2011 by Angela Best
A week or so ago I wrote my ‘Tip of the Week,’ which was sent to our subscribers, addressing why it is important for your website to be compatible with mobile phones. We mentioned the growing popularity of smartphones like Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s Blackberry devices and a variety of Google Android-based models.
For every one person who uses a computer there are four with cell phones. The number of people using those phones to search for local businesses is increasing, so it is critical that your website be compatible. That is, the important details are easily viewed such as your name, address and phone number. Most websites are not mobile friendly.
Now I am repeating myself but just in case you didn’t get my ‘Tip.’ If you don’t own a smart phone but need to see what your website might look like, check out offermobi.com. Simply add your URL in the box provided, pick the mobile smart phone you want to see your site on and click Process. You’ll get an image similar to the one I show here on the left.
Another alternative site is MobiReady. This is another free testing tool, which evaluates the mobile-readiness of your website using industry best practices and standards. Simple go to MobiReady.com and add your url to the address box provided. Wait a few seconds for it to load and then you’ll get a report similar to the image below. You’ll be able to see at a glance how well your site stacks up.
It isn’t too difficult to make your website mobile ready. You do not need to duplicate everything you have on your site. There are many tools that will allow you to provide only the absolute necessary details. The most popular are plugins. When someone uses their phone to search for you they are automatically diverted to a landing page set up specifically to be mobile friendly.
Tags: Hotel marketing ideas, Increase Visibility, Internet marketing for small business, Mobile Phones
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. For marketers and business owners this is right on. The future of marketing is here and it’s about getting back to what really matters. This is not really new but it is an old school business philosophy facilitated through new media. I agree with Gary: brands should be communicating directly with customers and rather than taking the easy road and focusing on traditional media. He explains why traditional media no longer has the impact it did and why the old ways of thinking will not work in this new world. Social media allows brands to have a one on one relationship with customers and gives them more insight than ever before into how their customers think and how to connect with them. Most “social media” campaigns we see are still not doing this and are still using social networks as “push” communications.
